“Call away my gig.”
He was wearing the shabbier of his two coats. There was just time, when he ran below to get the packets of dispatches, change his coat, to pass a comb through his hair, and twitch his neckcloth into position. He was back on deck just as his gig touched the water. Lusty work at the oars carried him round to the flagship. A chair dangled at her side, now almost lipped as a wave rose at it, now high above the water as the wave passed on. He had to watch carefully for his chance; as it was there was an uncomfortable moment when he hung by his arms as the gig went away from under him. But he managed to seat himself, and he felt the chair soar swiftly upwards as the hands above hauled on the tackle. The pipes shrilled as his head reached the level of the maindeck and the chair was swung in. He stepped aboard with his hand to the brim of his hat.
The deck was as white as paper, as white as the gloves and the shirts of the sideboys. Gold leaf gleamed in the sun, the most elaborate Turks’ heads adorned the ropework. The King’s own yacht could not be smarter than the quarter‑deck of the Ocean — that was what could be done in the flagship of a victorious admiral. It was as well to remember that Collingwood’s previous flagship, the Royal Sovereign, had been pounded into a mastless hulk, with four hundred dead and wounded on board her, at Trafalgar. The lieutenant of the watch, his telescope quite dazzling with polished brass and pipe clayed twine, wore spotless and unwrinkled white trousers; the buttons on his well‑fitting coat winked in the sunshine. It occurred to Hornblower that to be always as smart as that, in a ship additionally crowded by the presence of an admiral and his staff, could be by no means easy. Service in a flagship might be the quick way to promotion, but there were many crumpled petals in the bed of roses. The flag captain, Rotherham — Hornblower knew his name; it had appeared in a hundred newspaper accounts of Trafalgar — and the flag lieutenant were equally smart as they made him welcome.
“His Lordship is awaiting you below, sir,” said the flag lieutenant “Will you come this way?”
Collingwood shook hands with him in the great cabin below. He was a large man, stoop‑shouldered, with a pleasant smile. He eagerly took the packets Hornblower offered him, glancing at the superscriptions. One he kept in his hands, the others he gave to his secretary. He remembered his manners as he was about to break the seal.
“Please sit down, captain. Harkness, a glass of Madeira for Captain Hornblower. Or there is some Marsala that I can recommend, sir. Please forgive me for a moment. You will understand when I tell you these are letters from my wife.”
It was an upholstered chair in which Hornblower sat; under his feet was a thick carpet; there were a couple of pictures in gilt frames on the bulkheads; silver lamps hung by silver chains from the deck‑beams. Looking round him while Collingwood eagerly skimmed through his letters, Hornblower thought of all this being hurriedly bundled away when the Ocean cleared for action. But what held his attention most was two long boxes against the great stern windows. They were filled with earth and were planted with flowers — hyacinths and daffodils, blooming and lovely. The scent of the hyacinths reached Hornblower’s nostrils where he sat. There was something fantastically charming about them here at sea.
“I’ve been successful with my bulbs this year,” said Collingwood, putting his letters in his pocket and following Hornblower’s glance. He walked over and tilted up a daffodil bloom with sensitive fingers, looking down into its open face. “They are beautiful, aren’t they? Soon the daffodils will be flowering in England — some time, perhaps, I’ll see them again. Meanwhile these help to keep me contented. It is three years since I last set foot on land.”
Commanders‑in-Chief might win peerages and pensions, but their children, too, grew up without knowing their fathers. And Collingwood had walked shot‑torn decks in a hundred fights; but Hornblower, looking at the wistful smile, thought of other things than battles — thirty thousand turbulent seamen to be kept disciplined and efficient, court-martial findings to be confirmed, the eternal problems of provisions and water, convoys and blockade.